Supermarkets Offer Personalized Pricing
Supermarket chains are using data culled from billions of purchases to offer deals tailored to specific shoppers. That can boost sales and keep customers from straying to rivals
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Kimberley Cornwell’s husband is on a high-protein diet, and he usually eats eggs for breakfast. So when a Safeway shopping app offered a deal a few months ago on 18 eggs for $1.89, she took it. Cornwell had never given the store any information about her family’s health or fitness needs. The Chicago recruiter is a member of Safeway’s Just for U program, which uses complex algorithms to sift through shopping data to guess her needs and produce special personalized offers. “Sometimes I’d see something, and it’s a good deal or something I’d like to try,” Cornwell says. “I can usually save $10 to $20.”